Duck Week

We had breast on Tuesday and dug legs on Saturday, mostly because — or, entirely because — of a, er, clerical error at a very busy Whole Foods just after work. Having already made the blackberry sauce (here), we set out to find duck breasts locally; not easy. I’m pretty sure we ran into Greek Easter, which is either a month before or a month after or a week before or a week after regular Easter, or at least Greek Easter (observed). We finally found a place that sold them. When I went in he thought I was asking for “duck bread.” I thought he was asking me if I wanted “dog breast.” They proudly advertised that they sold “all-natural” meat. I never really considered how dystopian that sounds.

We’ve only made duck breast once, and it was one of those French-sounding kinds. (After googling “magret,” now I feel bad about it; not because I don’t like and support foie gras but when you put it like “Magret refers specifically to the breast of a mulard or Barbary duck that has been force fed to produce foie gras” it makes it sound like a fuckin’ Perdue chicken.) So I was confused when I saw this gargantuan lump of fat with a measly hacked up runty bit of red flesh. Maybe they screwed up and sold me a hunk of duck fat?

As it turns out, no, that’s what normal duck breasts look like. The only thing is that it seems most of the recipes you see online assume the overstuffed fuck-you kind of breast. Which is to say, adjust timing accordingly. This (these?) breast(s?) was OK but just a little too cooked in parts. The sauce was good.

And then there was the question of the four duck legs in the fridge. We couldn’t eat them that night because they take hours to cook, so we cooked them on Saturday. This was the recipe we used. It’s crazy how rudimentary those old Times pages look. At the same time, why? Are they static pages or something? You wouldn’t just update the style sheet? Maybe it’s done on purpose? It’s fascinating and ridiculous.

But it’s a great recipe. Jen wanted to make sure the skin was crispy. That it is. It’s also not overcooked at all. Mark Bittman calls it “crisp-braised.” It was super easy and super addictive. Nothing was left over.

One thing, though — why does a “whole duck leg” look suspiciously like two full duck legs? So we had what I would consider to be eight duck legs. I don’t know if the reboot means “two” or “four” or what. One thing I was surprised by was that given the interest in the vegetables that he continues to dice them. I’m assuming they don’t cook through correctly in the initial saute if they’re in bigger chunks, but wouldn’t they cook in that over for and hour? Maybe not; I definitely woudn’t know.